Man who wrote entire book on Google+ has no idea how to stop it from spamming him

It’s one thing to be a frustrated Google+ user. It’s another thing to be a frustrated user who happened to write an entire book on how to properly navigate and use Google’s social network. Kevin Purdy, the author of Google+: The Missing Manual, took to Twitter on Thursday to rant about how he had no idea how to stop total strangers from sending him invitations to events that he had no interest in attending.

“I am literally the author of a book on Google+, but cannot stop invites to SEO Hangouts in Cardiff, or St. Louis Tech Talks,’ ” Purdy fumed. “G+ has settings for ‘who can send notifications,’ ‘Who can Hangout with you,’ ‘Receive notifications->Events,’ and ‘Manage Subscriptions’… None of those settings stop random people who I do not have in circles, who lives hundreds of miles away, from inviting me to **everything**.”

This is particularly ironic because the blurb for Purdy’s book says that it’s written for anyone who wants “to gain more control over your social networking activities with Google+.” Since we don’t doubt Purdy’s expertise when it comes to the ins-and-outs of Google+, we’ll have to assume that there are some holes in the social network’s settings that are letting everyone who can find you spam you with unwanted invitations.